Gutenburg’s law: no job is safe

Before the Printing Press was invented by Johannes Gutenburg in 1440, books were written by scribes. With this invention, the professional (and tedious work) of scribes became obsolete and shifted the power to the hands of amateurs – who were faster, cheaper, and more accurate (book production rose from a few million to a billion in Europe over the next 400 years).

550 years after the Printing Press we are seeing the same shift. The internet has moved the work of music and movie producers, television and newspaper reporters, book publishers, lawyers, CPA’s, even doctors, mechanics (and so on) from professionals to amateurs.

Thanks to the internet, smart phones, cameras, social media everyone now has a voice and a way to connect with each other.

What does this all mean?

The status-quo is no longer decided by producers, reporters, publishers, lawyers, CPA, doctors, mechanics but by you and me. Because the content is no longer being filtered by them, now we can decide what is relevant.

What the scribes failed to do 550 years ago, was embrace that the world had changed forever and it was never going to be the same ever again. They held on to the old believe, until they were no longer useful or relevant. You can’t be a professional without being useful or relevant.

So we need to evolve and embrace what is coming. If you think it’s always going to stay the same and that your job will be secure 20 years from now (10 years? 5?), you may be mistaken. 65% of today’s students will be employed in job’s that don’t even exist yet.